High school boys basketball: West Jordan holds off pesky Davis

WEST JORDAN — Whether it's the first game of the year or the last, beating Davis is never easy. West Jordan found that out again Tuesday night.

In the season opener for both teams, and coming off a year in which they lost to Davis twice, the Jaguars built a 19-point lead but then nearly squandered it all as they hung on for the 54-52 victory behind some clutch play down the stretch by Jordan Loveridge.

"Last year we lost to them twice, two close games. Another close game today. That's a good team. It's a good win early in the season," said Loveridge, who finished with a game-high 25 points and 10 rebounds.

With West Jordan clinging to a 49-47 lead following back-to-back Davis 3-pointers, Loveridge responded by converting a three-point play on a driving layup to increase the Jaguars' lead to 52-47 with 1:04 remaining.

"That play shows how much he's grown in 12 months," said West Jordan coach Scott Briggs. "He was our best player last year as a sophomore, but at the end of a game I think he wasn't that assertive. A lot of time he was more content to let the seniors do some things."

West Jordan maintained the two-possession cushion the rest of the way until Davis' Tyson Denney hit a 3-pointer at the final buzzer.

West Jordan was particularly dominant on the glass, outrebounding Davis 40-20 and not allowing a single offensive rebounding. It's biggest problem was how it handled the frantic pace in the fourth quarter.

Capitalizing on Davis' awful shooting, West Jordan was never really challenged in the first half. That began to change once the Darts found their stroke in the second half.

"We got caught up in it, there's no question we got rattled. We started playing side to side a little bit. Probably started clock watching hoping that thing would hurry and go away," said Briggs. "Davis did a good job, they were really aggressive and definitely got us out of what we were trying to do."

Trevor Webb scored 12 of his team-high 17 points in the fourth quarter to spark the comeback.

Davis finished the game shooting 47 percent — impressive after shooting 26 in the first half — but its lack of rebounding is a big concern going forward.

Briggs quickly pointed out, however, that it was only November and both teams will get much better as the season moves on.

e-mail: jedward@desnews.com